Page 98 of Things We Never Said
If the ‘other side’ does turn out to exist after all, then I’ll be there when you arrive; I’ll be there to meet you, I promise. And you’ll be able to tell me what happened next. And you had better not say ‘nothing’. Because if you’ve wasted it, I’ll make your time in heaven, hell. And you can trust me on that. I just wish I could hang around to do it all with you.
Cassette #29-B
Hello there. Me again!
I’ve been um-ing and ah-ing about this one. I must have changed my mind twenty times about whether to include it or not. But as you know, I’ve never been very good at goodbyes. I’ve always had one final thing to say before I close the front door. And without this one, the truth, our truth, would never have been quite complete.
It’s about that photo of ‘us’ as kids. Picture number twenty-three or twenty-four, I think it is.
I have a horrible admission to make about that one, Sean.
That photo – the photo you found at Mum’s after she died – well, it was your photo.
I’d found it in the boxes when we moved to Thoday Street, and because Mum had told me about some kid I’d been in love with on holiday and because, like you, I wanted to believe that person was you, I’d taken the photo to show Mum. And I’d forgotten to bring it back.
When Mum died, you found it there – she hadn’t tidied properly in years – and you assumed that she had the same photo. You were so bowled over by the whole thing that I didn’t dare tell you the truth. We’d been through that difficult patch and I was desperately trying to find my way back to you. And the photo provided exactly the excuse we needed.
But the truth was that Mum was useless. I showed her your photo and asked if the girl in the picture was me, and she said that she doubted it. I’d never had dungarees, she said. She’d always put me in dresses. And that’s true. I remember that. I was forever scraping my knees.
I really wanted to believe, so I begged her to look more closely, to study the surroundings, to look at the swings in the background or the toilet block on the right-hand side. I asked her if she remembered that campsite, and she said that, no, she didn’t think so. But she really couldn’t remember. She didn’t even know which boyfriend she’d been with at the time.
So, I’m sorry, again. I’ve always preferred to believe, like you, that it’s possible. I’ve always chosen to think that maybe that was us in the photo, that perhaps we did meet when I was five, that we really might have been in love our whole lives, ever since that picture. But the odds, as Mum said, are against it. Still, eighteen onwards is still pretty good going, isn’t it?
Oh, there’s one more little story I want to tell you – yes, I know, I know, they keep on coming – but I’ve just thought of this one, and it seems a good way to end these tapes, if such a thing exists.
Do you remember when Mum died? Do you remember how, after the cremation, I went off for a walk around the graveyard and you found me in tears?
Well, I had come upon a handwritten gravestone – actually, it wasn’t stone at all, it was made out of tin, roughly cut to the shape of a heart and painted with black enamel. On it, inscribed by hand, was a poem.
Now, I don’t know if it’s a well-known poem or if it was written by the person who made the love heart, but I thought it was very touching, and I’ve never ever forgotten it.
It said:TO LOSE SOMEONE YOU REALLY LOVE/IS HARD BEYOND BELIEF/ YOUR HEART COMES CLOSE TO BREAKING POINT/AND NO ONE KNOWS THE GRIEF/ MANY TIMESI’VE THOUGHT OF YOU/AND MANY TIMESI’VE CRIED/ IF MY LOVE COULD HAVE SAVED YOU/YOU NEVER WOULD HAVE DIED.
I wanted you to hear that little ditty, Sean, because it’s exactly how I feel.
Just as I was reading the poem, a butterfly came and perched on the edge of the tin heart, and it made me think about the fact that everyone loves butterflies, but even they have to die.
If loving someone was reason enough to be able to stick around, then I’d still be there beside you. And if love was ever enough to save someone’s life, then yours would have saved me, too. Because no one ever gave it more easily, or more generously, than you did.
I love you so much, Sean. I’ve been loved so much, Sean. But it’s not enough to change destiny. And it’s not enough to fight cancer. So goodbye, baby. And look after April for me. She takes up the half of my heart that isn’t taken by you.
EPILOGUE
It is the fifth of January and Sean has been on holiday for three weeks. All that annual leave turned out to be useful in the end.
It’s below zero degrees outside, but the snow, repeatedly forecast over the Christmas period, never arrived. And that’s just as well, really. With the exception of Christmas Day, which Sean spent with April in London, he’s been doing his best to ignore the whole festive period. And, by losing himself in his packing, he has pretty much succeeded.
But now, while cleaning out the loft, he has found that second box of photos, the one Catherine mentioned, and he can’t decide whether to tape the lid down and simply move it, unopened, to the new flat, or whether to open it and investigate the contents.
He makes himself a mug of tea and sips it while he decides. And then, thinking that it’s likely to become an obsession if he doesn’t look, he removes the lid and tips the contents onto the kitchen table.
The first thing he spots is a letter. It contains the typed results of the DNA test Catherine had mentioned having done. It proves, it says, his paternity of their daughter.
He gently folds this, caresses it and then puts it to one side. He starts to sift through the photos, and here is newborn April looking surprised, and then forward in time to Catherine in the pool in Valencia, and now fast-forward again to April proudly leaning on the roof of her first car – a little green Vauxhall Corsa.
Amidst the loose photos is a much older, yellowed album containing photos of Catherine as a baby, then Catherine as a toddler, then Catherine at school.
Sean’s eyes are misting now, so he puts these photos to one side. April, who is due to give birth soon, will love them, he thinks. He then restacks the remaining photos in the box and tapes down the lid.
